Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

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wakadowakado
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Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by wakadowakado »

Hi every viewer, what is the answer? I ask this, simply to ascertain it, in order that I spend my time in the right direction of my next puzzle postcard product. I look forward to your comments in anticipation. Best regards Brian

Moonraker
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Moonraker »

1. Building up a reference work of PCs of a particular locality and researching them and their messages.
2. Looking at cards some time after acquisition and spotting new detail, or appreciating something about them because of recently-acquired knowledge.
3. Solving a puzzle about a card or its message that's been niggling one for some time.


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wakadowakado
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by wakadowakado »

Hi Moonraker, Thanks for the response. Would it be fair comment to state that the collector is equally absorbed in the
message content as to the postcard subject? Best wishes Brian

ECooper
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by ECooper »

Moonraker wrote:1. Building up a reference work of PCs of a particular locality and researching them and their messages.
2. Looking at cards some time after acquisition and spotting new detail, or appreciating something about them because of recently-acquired knowledge.
3. Solving a puzzle about a card or its message that's been niggling one for some time.
Wow! That's exactly it. Put more eloquently than I could manage. Unlike other hobbies the greatest thrill is in finding something (a subject or view) you didn't know existed then with a little more effort (research) in time, finding out more about it! that sums it up for me too. Unlike hobbies such as stamp collecting where everything available is already pretty well catalogued or documented.

Moonraker
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Moonraker »

wakadowakado wrote:Hi Moonraker, Thanks for the response. Would it be fair comment to state that the collector is equally absorbed in the message content as to the postcard subject? Best wishes Brian
I collect PCs of military activity in Wiltshire and have a number of cards where the message adds greatly to the value of the PC for me - but luckily did not appear to have influenced the price:

1. details of camp life;
2. gossip about "spies" in camp - this at the beginning of the Great War; at first I thought the messages reflected the hysteria of the time, but have discovered that, in the case of Canadian troops in 1914, a number of soldiers with German names had been wheedled out and sent back home;
3. a message written from a remote farm on Salisbury Plain;
4. a soldier's message in an archaic form of Welsh, which two Welsh-speakers couldn't translate - then an aunt who lived near the town to which the card had been sent tracked down someone who could understand it;
5. references to difficulties travelling on trains during the war;
6. two cards purchased at different times showed troops incongruously in full dress uniform at their summer camp in 1910; both had messages that helped me (eventually) to realise that they were rehearsing for the funeral of Edward VII in London - the postmark dates helped too;
7. an account by a Belgian refugee who had found a job at a Wiltshire army camp.

etc etc

Moonraker

Andrew
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Andrew »

Given that I collect postcards of castles, I get satisfaction when finding "new" castles - that is, postcards of castles for which I do not have any other picture of. Obviously, as time progresses, this becomes more difficult, and increasingly expensive.
I enjoy scanning the cards to see the picture in greater detail. It's amazing what you can miss at first glance, particularly whilst at postcard fairs, when time is limited.

wakadowakado
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by wakadowakado »

Hi Moonraker, Thank you for taking the time to outline the interesting points in the message of 03 03 08. One might add that your efforts have been put to good use by creating a unique diary of your subject and in time you may have enough material
in hand to produce an illustrated publication with stories from that period. Best wishes Brian

Moonraker
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Moonraker »

wakadowakado wrote:Hi Moonraker, Thank you for taking the time to outline the interesting points in the message of 03 03 08. One might add that your efforts have been put to good use by creating a unique diary of your subject and in time you may have enough material
in hand to produce an illustrated publication with stories from that period. Best wishes Brian
Brian:

Been there, done that. I was intrigued by some of the postcards and started researching them and in 1999 self-published a modest book, Wiltshire and the Great War, now out of print. Most of the illustrations were PCs.

Now I'm researching the Canadian army on Salisbury Plain 1914-15 - I have about 40 PCs of them, including several of the horrendous floods and mud they had to put up with.

I also get pleasure from comparing today's topography with that shown in cards of a hundred years ago and seeing how things have or haven't changed. It's not uncommon for a local passer-by to become involved. Ten years ago I was wandering around a village trying to place a large house; the villagers were on an awayday, the pub was closed and the first chap I met had a serious speech defect. The second guy turned out to be the gardener of the house I was looking for, so he took me in to the grounds for a look-see; the house was behind high walls and i wouldn't have spotted it otherwise.

One great achievement was spotting some troops in a trench on an uncaptioned card published by a Marlborough photographer; I know the locality very well, and recognised the road in the background and also a copse that I had "defended" on a cadet corps field day 40 years ago. Later I discovered an article in the local newspaper for December 1914 describing the trench. Very satisfying!


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wakadowakado
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by wakadowakado »

Hi Moonraker, Thank you for the response and interesting recollections. Some twenty-five years ago an old Army Officer's wife
gave me about twenty issues of 'Men Only and London Opinion' published during the second World War I have always found time to absorb and read about the mood of those dark days and remain thankful for service efforts. The publications' covers bore the beautiful strong lines of E.S. Hynes ( Sudocard Art No 002) and inside the magic of Dickson's cartoons As you pointed out magazine styles change! Best wishes Brian

Colin
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Colin »

My postcard collecting is, I have to admit, a full-fledged obsession. I collect views of London – a broad field, to be sure, since with the possible exception of Rome, London may be the most postcarded city in the world. But also perhaps a somewhat hackneyed field, at least for Britons. I do not see much about London in the postcard blogs and bulletin boards.

I guess I should make another admission early on: I am an American, born in Boston (Massachusetts) and a resident of New York City for almost half a century. My obsession with London started many years ago when I acquired a guide to London with marvelous Bartholomew maps. I don’t have a mind for facts and figures, but I have always had a very strong sense of “place,” and I spent hours poring over those exquisitely engraved and colored streets and squares as though I was actually walking through them. And I fell in love with London – not the London of my parents’ generation, a place replete with literary and historical associations, but the place itself, as though one should fall hopelessly and permanently in love with a woman simply on hearing about her, with a love that could be neither augmented nor diminished by eventual experience of her personality, life and character. It was another 20 years or so before the postcard collecting started. And little by little, and without being aware that I was doing it, I began building a fantasy London out of postcards. What was the fantasy? Tourist London, the London of families and individuals on holiday, and definitely pre-1950; the brightly colored chromes that started appearing about then are not a part of my London.

But 30 or 40 well-chosen postcards could tell the story of tourist London. How has my collection grown to over 2,500? Moonraker touched on it in his March 1 post. Once I had the major “sights,” I was on the lookout for better quality views, or older ones, or ones that showed some new detail. I had Trafalgar Square and the Charing Cross Hotel; could I find one that featured the buildings in between? I had plenty of St Paul’s Cathedral; but it was only a month ago that I acquired a view from the east end of St Paul’s showing St Paul’s Square and St Augustine Watling Street, and not much longer ago finally found a good photographic postcard view of the north half of St Paul’s Churchyard. Tuck or Valentine might inadvertently catch a corner of a building missed in the standard views, but it took the Judges photographers to actually turn around and shoot whatever was facing the tourist attraction (but were those Judges photos always that dark, or have eight or nine decades transformed “atmosphere” into eternal dusk?).

Is there a limit to the length of these posts? I’ll close by saying that I am planning to attend the London postcard show in August and would very much like to make contact with collectors who are at least sympathetic to my area of special interest. And special interests aside, I would like to hear more about why you collect what you collect. Colin

Andrew
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Andrew »

I collect old postcards of castles because I have an interest in the architecture and history - which extends to old prints and engravings, as well as books on the subject. Modern books / booklets included, particularly sales particulars for any castle that is put on the market.

And hey - I just like castles. :lol: Like all collections, it starts off small, then grows and grows and grows.

Colin
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Colin »

Andrew, thanks for your post elaborating on your castle collection. In my London interest I also branch out into non-postcard media. For a time I was buying any old print I could find that showed a London church,including engravings by Shepherd and those published by Robert Wilkinson and The Complete English Traveller. A few birthdays ago my wife had the best of those framed, and they now command a place of honor on the living room wall. I also have my collection of books on London - mainly picture books with explanatory text, the most special of which is Volume 2 of Godwin & Britton's The Churches of London (C. Tilt, 1839). (I would have bought Volume 1 too but it had parted company with its companion by the time the latter made its appearance at the Antiquarian Book Fair in New York.)

Aside from the one that William the Conqueror built at the north end of Tower Bridge, London is a bit short on castles. I did find the following from my small collection of "England minus London" postcards:

Peel City from Castle, Isle of Man (Isle of Man Publicity Board)
The Castle, Hastings (Gifford Series, RP)
Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye (J.B. White, RP)
Castle Gateway, Lincoln (rubber stamped "Simmons College Library" - not thrilled about owning this one as it evidently left Simmons College without permission)
Lynton - Castle Rock (Photochrom Co., RP)
The Kitchen, King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel (Lilywhite Ltd, RP)
115 Steps to the Prison, King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel (R. Youlton, RP)
Caernarvon Castle, Interior Looking West (H.M. Office of Works, RP) (okay, okay, not England, but from across the pond it looks close)

If you would be interested in seeing any of those, I would be happy to e-mail you a scan. Do you remember what got you started on castles? A childhood experience? Or did the hobby just sneak up on you in later years? Colin

Andrew
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Andrew »

Colin wrote:Andrew, thanks for your post elaborating on your castle collection. In my London interest I also branch out into non-postcard media. For a time I was buying any old print I could find that showed a London church,including engravings by Shepherd and those published by Robert Wilkinson and The Complete English Traveller. A few birthdays ago my wife had the best of those framed, and they now command a place of honor on the living room wall. I also have my collection of books on London - mainly picture books with explanatory text, the most special of which is Volume 2 of Godwin & Britton's The Churches of London (C. Tilt, 1839). (I would have bought Volume 1 too but it had parted company with its companion by the time the latter made its appearance at the Antiquarian Book Fair in New York.)

Aside from the one that William the Conqueror built at the north end of Tower Bridge, London is a bit short on castles. I did find the following from my small collection of "England minus London" postcards:

Peel City from Castle, Isle of Man (Isle of Man Publicity Board)
The Castle, Hastings (Gifford Series, RP)
Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye (J.B. White, RP)
Castle Gateway, Lincoln (rubber stamped "Simmons College Library" - not thrilled about owning this one as it evidently left Simmons College without permission)
Lynton - Castle Rock (Photochrom Co., RP)
The Kitchen, King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel (Lilywhite Ltd, RP)
115 Steps to the Prison, King Arthur's Castle, Tintagel (R. Youlton, RP)
Caernarvon Castle, Interior Looking West (H.M. Office of Works, RP) (okay, okay, not England, but from across the pond it looks close)

If you would be interested in seeing any of those, I would be happy to e-mail you a scan. Do you remember what got you started on castles? A childhood experience? Or did the hobby just sneak up on you in later years? Colin
Colin,
Checking my spreadsheet of castle postcards, I seem to have images of the majority of these - but thank you for the offer. While I have over 4200 postcards and photos of castles from Britain, as well as over 200 old prints and engravings, I do also have around 20,000 images of British castles on CD-Rom, collected over the years from magazines and other sources.

One of the books that takes pride of place in my collection is the tome by Charles Knight, entitled "Old England : A Pictorial Museum of Regal, Ecclesiastical, Municipal, Baronial and Popular Antiquities", published by James Sangster & Co., (First Edition in 2 volumes, 1843-46).

I started taking interest during my first holiday to Scotland - Kilchurn Castle being the first postcard in my collection, 35 years ago. The interest lapsed in my late teens and most of my twenties (the fairer sex being of greater interest), but restarted about 15 years ago. About 3000 cards and photos have been added in the last nine years - close to one per day on average. :shock:

My wife does not share my interest - hence not too many framed prints on the wall. I think there are currently eight dotted around the house. There would be more if I had my own way !!! :wink: Maybe one day ....

Colin
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Colin »

Andrew,
An exemplary response! I say exemplary because you set a pattern for other board users, including myself, to find a way to participate in a “thread” to which they may initially think they have little to contribute. Your June 17 post gives me an idea of the scope and size of your castle collection, and also brings out your engaging personality. In addition, it provides a number of specifics for future discussion. For example, without straying too far from the theme of the entire postcard.co.uk website and its messageboard, I can boast a Charles Knight volume myself: a quite beaten up two-volumes-in-one from his six-volume London (1844). (Michael, this is postcard-related, since we use these tomes to research our postcard collections.) One of the few places I am ever found in New York City, although I’ve lived here for almost 50 years, is the Strand bookstore at 12th Street & Broadway. The Strand has a rare book room on the third floor, and off that rare book room is a chamber which is a sort of cemetery or morgue for ancient, crumbling, often leatherbound or just as often coverless books, many of them orphans from sets, that are still considered salable, at bargain prices, because of some pretty tooling on a leather binding, or an early date, or good steel engravings. That is where I found my Charles Knight. I paid $10 for it, and it is crammed with illustrations of London (the subject of my postcard collection). Brianz (June 14), are you there? What led you to artist signed dog postcards? Colin

Brianz
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Re: Most appealing subject of postcard collecting

Post by Brianz »

Yes, I'm here.

What drew me to artist signed dog postards? Well, I have four dogs (Cardigan Welsh Corgis), including two U.S. champions. All four live the good life as pets today, but the years of going to dog shows gave me an appreciation for many breeds. The canine-human bond has always fascinated me and I find dogs to be incredibly beautiful creatures.

But why artist signed? It started when I first came across a postcard by Arthur Wardle depicting Bassett Hounds. In the best tradition of portraiture, Wardle seemed to "arrest" these dogs in a single moment in time. I was astonished at the complexity and personality he was able to capture and began seeking out more of his work and encountering other artists I liked. I had been intrigued by postcards for some time but could never decide what to collect until then.

I quickly branched-out into other artist signed cards, especially those having to do with animals, landscapes or topography. I have a peculiar quirk of personality (at least I don't know anybone who shares it) that makes it difficult for me to take-in objects and scenery until I can return to them later in memory. A gifted artist's rendering on a postcard gives me the time and manageable space to effect this appreciation more quickly and efficiently by the very nature of the medium. Thus, the postcard becomes for me (to quote visual poet, Geoff Huth, in another context,) an "object of contemplation". And this is true of all postcards I collect, whether Gruss Aus, dogs or other artist signed. They take me places and feed my imagination in a way similar to the way a good poem does (think Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey").

So I am not just a collector of postcards as objects to be filed away in a box or binder, but am actively engaged with my collection. Lately, I have been choosing two cards daily to put on my desk for appreciation and company. As I write this, a postcard of Wardle's "Kerry Beagles" published by A. Vivian Mansell and a Max Ettlinger postcard of two dachshunds leaping a fence by an artist signed Feiering, are before me.

Postcards are my passion. My interests have grown to include postcard history, researching artists, publishing houses, printing methods, etc. I recently finished writing an article on enjoying Gruss Aus postcards that I hope to submit somewhere (though it's probably too long - like this email). Always, first and foremost, I seek cards that are beautiful and that speak to me. I collect what I enjoy.

Brian

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